


Lacuna

by lovelihead



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, Chloe doesn't care, F/F, Jesse wants Chloe, Smut, steamy makeouts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 04:06:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19456003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelihead/pseuds/lovelihead
Summary: “So pretty,” Chloe’s voice is sweet and dangerous, dripping poisoned syrup when she speaks.And then she’s leaning in, and Beca can taste her malbec-imbued breath on her own tongue when she inhales sharply.Beca gets caught in a web of guilt when she begins an affair with her best friend's crush.





	Lacuna

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hello, hey. It's been a while. Is anyone still alive here?
> 
> Here's a thing. Another AU thing. A moody AU thing.

Beca doesn’t like going out.

She doesn’t like the noise, she doesn’t like the crowds, and she certainly doesn’t like the way that Jesse is eyeballing her over a tray full of tequila shots and beer.

It’s not that she’s antisocial or boring, she just well and truly believes that that part of her life should be put to rest. She had lived that life already; going to bars every single weekend in college, getting drunk, dancing until dawn. It had been fun, more than fun really. But at twenty-seven years of age, she’s not really certain at what point exactly over the years the pounding bass and flashing lights had diverged from being invigorating, to irritating.

“Beca! _”_ Jesse’s voice screeches over the noise, causing her to wince. His eyes are a little glassy and his cheeks are ruddy with his exuberance. It prompts Beca to contemplate just how many drinks he’d had before her arrival.

“Jesse,” she acknowledges drily, regarding him with an arched brow.

“I haven’t seen you in _forever,”_ is his slightly accusatory response.

He places the tray down on the table between them before engulfing Beca in a hug. She laughs good-naturedly, returning the gesture awkwardly from where she’s perched on her bar stool.

“It’s good to see you too, Jess,” she concedes, even though it had only been a little over two weeks since they’d last seen each other.

Beca would never admit it aloud, but she actually finds Jesse’s clingy, lost puppy disposition endearing. Only sometimes.

When he relinquishes his grip and slides into the opposing stool, she finally takes stock of the tray in front of her, “Fuck, are you trying to kill us?”

There are ten tequila shots, full to the brim.

“No,” he laughs a little too loud, passing her one of the beers, “There’s some company joining us soon, hope you don’t mind.”

His expression shifts to one of contrite concern. He had known Beca long enough to understand her standoffish, neophobic ways. Springing things on her generally never boded well.

They had dated briefly, _very_ briefly thankfully, in college, and Jesse had quickly learned that his movie-standard romantic gestures weren’t ever going to be well received.

She smiles and nods, though.

“Just a couple of people from work,” he continues, urgently filling the silence, “Oh! And,” his smile turns a little coy and Beca smirks in response, kicking his shin lightly under the table.

“What’s that face for?”

The demure act continues, “It’s nothing.”

Beca feeds off of how much he wears his feelings all over his face.

Jesse shrugs, “There’s just this girl, it’s really nothing, I just want you to meet her that’s all. See what you think.”

Beca’s lips part with glee before she singsongs teasingly, “Does Jesse have a _crush_?”

“ _Maybe,”_ he blushes, “She’s just,” he shakes his head, “You’ll see, she’s something else Becs. _Really_ pretty, super funny and sweet but at the same time hard to read, it keeps me on my toes. She just started working with us about three weeks ago and I can’t get her out of my head.”

“Oh shit, you’re in deep,” Beca huffs a breath, equal parts bewildered and amused, “Ever heard of not fraternising in the workplace?”

Jesse rolls his eyes at her.

They’d been good friends for several years and Beca was more than accustomed to Jesse’s hopeless-romantic tendencies. When he fell, he fell hard and fast. It was difficult to watch sometimes because it wasn’t often that people could reciprocate the amount of devotion and feeling that he poured into his relationships. Herself included.

“It’s not like that,” he takes a pull on his beer, “She might not even be staying on with us, the developers wanted her on board for that video game we’re scoring at the moment and she’s _good,_ Beca,” he closes his eyes and disappears into some far-off music-gasm space for a few long moments.

“Alright, alright,” Beca shakes him out of his trance, “Stop it, I think you’re actually about to start frothing at the mouth.”

He throws his wadded up napkin in her general direction, but his mind and body are moving to different beats and it misses her by a long shot.

Beca just laughs at his pitifully dejected expression, “When she gets here we’ll see if she gets the best friend seal of approval.”

* * *

It doesn’t take them long to arrive, only about a song and a half. That’s the only way that Beca can measure time when it relentlessly pounds through her skull.

Jesse’s face lights up with recognition and he waves his hand like an excitable schoolboy. Beca twists around on her stool to see three people approaching their table.

One is blonde and pretty, a little straight-laced and uptight looking. She appears about as happy to be in the club as Beca feels. The next, who Beca has met on numerous occasions, is Benji, Jesse’s odd but well-intentioned friend. And the final member of their trio is…

Watching her.

Beca feels confused and warmed by discomfort for a moment as their gazes’ lock.

Time decelerates as she approaches. Flaming red hair is pulled over one shoulder, and the sharpness of her jawline draws Beca’s eyes in and then upward until she’s being burned again by those impossibly blue eyes. Her lips, painted a deep red wine color, part with a smirk. A warm heat prickles at the back of Beca’s neck as her eyes sweep downward, taking in the fitted leather jacket, and tight black jeans.

“Hey guys!” Jesse cheers animatedly, beckoning them over.

The intensity of his excitement yanks Beca from the strange haze that she’d fallen into. She internally vows to never again drink on an empty stomach.

“Meet my best friend Beca,” he abruptly turns the spotlight to her and Beca blushes hotly, almost choking on her own tongue, “We’ve known each other since college and she’s a _whiz_ music producer.”

Benji gives her a wave and the blonde nods cordially in her direction. The redhead doesn’t even react, though the smirk never leaves her face.

“This is Aubrey and Chloe,” Jesse continues, waving at the blonde, and then the redhead respectively, “From work.”

Beca attempts to greet them but has to clear her throat.

They all take a seat and Beca hides the flush of her cheeks behind her beer bottle when Chloe takes the seat right beside her; when her thigh presses against hers.

Beca can’t help but inhale a lungful of her perfume. It’s intoxicating; clean and warm.

“So, who says we start this night off right?” Jesse grins boisterously, pushing the tray of shots forward.

* * *

An hour passes them by and Beca feels herself swaying on her stool as she laughs along at something Jesse says. The alcohol buzzes beneath her skin and the music reverberates in her chest. It’s not so bad anymore, really. It’s actually kind of fun. The way her body vibrates along to the beat reminds her of what she loved so much about mixing music in the first place, and the way the lights flash and stutter has every passing moment bordering on surreal. She melts into it as her mind swims and her body thrums.

Jesse’s new work friends are nice. Aubrey’s almost just what she expected, reserved and a little blunt. But she’s funny in a really dry way that actually delights Beca. The alcohol steadily softens her too, and she sits beside Jesse with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes as she smiles along and sips on her vodka tonic. 

Chloe’s... something.

Beca can’t quite put her finger on it. She’s sweet, in a sugar and spice kind of way. She’s a little quiet though, observant. Beca swears that every time she turns her gaze in Chloe’s direction, she’s watching her over the rim of her wine glass. It causes something small and hot to simmer in the pit of her stomach, and the feeling only grows each time their eyes meet.

She’s highly entertaining though, every word that does come out of her mouth is poignant and biting. It steals the breath from Beca’s lungs each time.

There’s something almost predatory about her, Beca surmises. Though also, at the same time not. She’s all soft edges and sweet grace. Her laughter tinkles melodiously in Beca’s ear and her smile does a better job of lighting the room than the strobe lights do. But, Beca can’t deny that there’s something sharp and dangerous cloaked there too, like a dagger sheathed in velvet. She can see it in her eyes, in the quirk of her lip, can hear it in the cadence of her voice. Can _feel_ it in the air around them. It’s suffocating, almost painful. Like barbed wire is constricting around her lungs, notching tighter and tighter with every passing minute.

“Bec, Bec,” Jesse’s voice is loud and his skin is flushed as he watches her through amused, bleary eyes, “Come to the bar with me?” there’s something else there in his gaze too, an unspoken insistence.

She rolls her eyes and climbs to her feet to follow him, not missing the way that Chloe’s eyes burn into her as she brushes past her in the tight space.

He leads her through the mass of moving bodies, and to a quieter corner at the end of the bar, before he turns toward her with a boyish grin.

“So, what do you think?” his eyes twinkle, and it takes Beca’s addled mind a few long moments to catch up.

She feels lost.

“She’s great, right?” Jesse prompts.

Beca blames the alcohol for her mind’s inability to process the conversation at a normal speed. And nothing else.

“Yeah,” she supplies finally, dumbly.

She realises that she doesn’t actually know _who_ Jesse is referring to. He had never mentioned who he was talking about by name.

She hates herself a little bit for selfishly hoping that it’s not Chloe.

“I mean, her _eyes,_ ” he gushes, “She’s so smart. Her hair, it’s so beautiful, she has like this whole Satine thing going on. Come on.”

Fuck. Of course it’s Chloe.

Her smile is forced, “Yeah, Jess.”

The fact that Jesse romanticized _everything_ about his life had been a point of contention for them in the past. Beca was a realist, maybe even bordering on being a pessimist at times, and Jesse was a quixotic optimist who constantly toed the line of being completely impractical. A lot of the time their differences only strengthened their friendship, balanced them out, but Jesse’s sensitivity and inability to face reality had definitely polarised them over the years.

Beca would never say it to him, but her opinion was that he was so unlucky in love because he had based all of his romantic expectations on the films he obsessed over. Soulmates, and undying love, and grand romantic gestures. It wasn’t realistic, it wasn’t rational, and that’s why he was always left so disappointed and wounded by the actualities of life. He would project all of his unreasonable romantic expectations onto the girls that he would date and idolise them. He would romanticize them until they were no longer living breathing people, but an image of what he _thought_ they should be. How he thought their relationship should be. It frustrated Beca to see it, having been on the receiving end of the treatment at one time. Having had to pick up his broken heart time and time again.

She can see him falling into the same trap with Chloe. Can tell that he’s propping her up on that pedestal and spiralling at her feet. She wants to pull him away, for his own good.

There’s no denying, that girl’s got femme fatale written all over her.

Beca thinks that the next round of shots and the whiskey soda that he pushes into her hand with glee may just be the end of both of them tonight. 

* * *

The lights seem even brighter, somehow. They flash and scatter around the room hypnotically, and Beca feels dizzy from it. She’s still perched on her barstool, swirling the straw through her drink absently as she watches the rest of their group dance to the heavy bass house track that pounds through the club.

Her head swims, ebbing and flowing with the light, and the music, and the mass of gyrating bodies. It’s one of those off-kilter moments where she becomes hyperaware of just how drunk she is, but is also _too drunk_ to cling to the knowledge for long.

Chloe’s in the middle of the throng of bodies, rolling to the heavy beat. Her hips twist in an entrancingly smooth and rhythmic way as her fingers run through her own messy hair with abandon.

Even from her perch across the room, Beca can see the way her skin dews with sweat beneath the lights.

The white of her teeth slices through the crimson of her lips as she bites down and grinds along to the heavy bass.

Beca feels a wicked heat course down her spine and ignite every inch of her flesh when Chloe’s burning gaze catches her own across the room. The way she eyes her almost borders on predatory, and Beca becomes wrapped up in the undeniably voracious gleam that’s concealed there in her stare. She doesn’t look away, even when long seconds continue to pass them by, and Beca doesn’t either. Can’t. Chloe’s teeth remain sunk in her own threatening smirk, and she never stops moving her body to the beat.

Beca almost feels hunted. Like she’s the prey. The way the lights dance around Chloe’s body, and how the alcohol floods through her own, causes her mind to fog over.

The feeling expands and boils over, becoming much more than she can handle. In the next instant, she’s tearing her eyes away and abandoning their table to seek solace, somewhere. Anywhere but there.

* * *

She somehow finds a small, private bathroom, sequestered at the end of a roped off hallway which she’s not entirely certain she should have slipped by.

She can’t bring herself to care.

Her vision is doing that thing where it spins and stutters, her body overheating. She just needed to get away from the noise and the chaos of the club. She just needed to cool down.

She _really_ needed to never fucking drink ever again.

A neon sign spelling out some kind of quasi-poetic hipster saying casts a red glow over the small room. Her vision is too fuzzy to make out exactly what it says, but she’s thankful for the dim glow and for the fact that she doesn’t have to subject her sensitive eyes to the obtrusive overhead light.

Dampening a paper towel, she presses it against her flushed cheeks and watches herself in the mirror through unfocused eyes. With each passing second, and each pacifying breath, her vision begins to clear and her heart slows its harsh rhythm against her ribcage.

Fuck.

Fuck Jesse for buying so many rounds.

Fuck her for thinking that she could drown her wayward thoughts in the bottom of a whiskey glass.

Fuck Chloe for…

Following her.

Chloe presses the door open and closes it behind herself just as quickly, leaning against the solid surface as she settles her gaze on Beca once more.

The way the cherry-coloured light plays across her skin and ignites her hair makes her look even more viperous, even more clandestine, somehow. Beca’s body temperature skyrockets again.

“I came to check on you,” Chloe speaks coolly, answering the unspoken question that hangs in the air between them, “It seemed like you were in bit of a hurry.”

Beca swallows heavily, her tongue feeling three times larger all of a sudden, “I’m fine, just… needed a minute.”

Chloe doesn’t respond verbally, just nods and walks toward her with a kind of unhurried, predacious grace that leaves Beca shrinking back against the counter. Caged by her approach.

When she’s near, within touching distance, Chloe rests her hip against the sink and folds her arms across her chest.

Her eyes flutter downward.

“This is sweet,” Chloe’s voice is like silk, a few octaves lower than normal, as she reaches out with a finger to hook the chain of Beca’s necklace and tug.

It’s not a firm tug, by any means, but her close proximity alone causes Beca to jerk forward into the motion.

“It was my mom’s,” Beca’s unsure why she relinquishes the information so freely, or why Chloe’s expression shifts – almost imperceptibly – at the hastily exhaled statement.

A noncommittal hum is her sole response. She’s somehow even closer now though, and she looks down the bridge of her nose at Beca.

Really, she can’t be that much taller than her, but the thick heeled boots that she wears, along with the dauntingly honeyed gleam in her eyes, has Beca feeling much smaller than she ever has.

Chloe tugs at the chain one more time, absently, as she watches her with a fierceness that steals the breath right from Beca’s lungs. She’s never felt so scrutinised in all her life. Chloe’s gaze is both piercing and magnetizing; it scorches her, but she’s powerless to turn away.

Never quite having understood the ‘deer caught in headlights’ idiom so well until this very moment, she feels captured, pensile, left to wait for her inevitable ruin. 

Chloe’s finger unhooks from the chain and her hand splays across the side of Beca’s neck. Her touch is gentle, but it disrupts Beca’s heartbeat all the same.

“So pretty,” Chloe’s voice is sweet and dangerous, dripping poisoned syrup when she speaks.

And then she’s leaning in, and Beca can taste her malbec-imbued breath on her own tongue when she inhales sharply.

Her head spins - from the alcohol, from the bass that vibrates through the walls and into the small room, from Chloe’s close proximity. It’s a potent cocktail that leaves Beca even more inebriated than before. 

Chloe’s breath washes over her cheeks and Beca inhales, a little greedily. The earthy sweetness of her breath sinks into Beca’s own lungs and scatters through her body.

And from that moment forward she feels poisoned.

Addicted.

So, really, it’s easy to succumb.

Impossible not to.

Chloe’s lips are sliding over her own and she’s pressing her backwards against the sink. The way she moves, hand gripping tightly at Beca’s hip, is both unhurried and demanding.

Beca’s lips part with a gasp at the feeling and Chloe presses forward, consuming her. Her tongue glides over Beca’s lower lip and the fingers that she has splayed across her neck drift upward and weave through her hair with serpentine torpor.

Beca feels completely devoured. She lets Chloe ravage her, dominate her, as she fists the material of Chloe’s leather jacket in her hands and moans into her mouth with unabashed desperation.

Her mind is on fire and she can’t keep up. It gets harder to breathe the longer she submits. Somehow Chloe’s breath, which pours into her own lungs like an addictive kind of noxious smoke, sends her higher than the alcohol ever had the chance to.

Chloe’s lips are burning a path over her jaw and down her neck. She bites down on the delicate skin behind Beca’s ear, drawing flesh between her cutting teeth before assuaging the pain with her lips and tongue.

It’s fitting, really.

Beca’s trembling, strangling her own keening moans deep in her throat before they have the chance to escape. She’s spinning, pliant, lost to the touch. Her knuckles blanch when she clings to the counter behind her for support. It’s all in vain though, against the danger of Chloe’s pressing thigh.

A molten, liquid heat swirls deep within her core and it rises to fill every hollow cavity of her chest. It swells, scorching at the back of her throat when Chloe’s hot breath floods across the skin there.

It all makes her feel so nauseated. So depraved.

“Chloe,” she gasps her name into the air.

It’s quiet, barely even a wisp of a breath, but it draws Chloe’s lips back to hers like she’s on a tether.

The domineering, heavy press of Chloe’s tongue as it manipulates her own and sweeps across her swollen lips is completely shattering. The taste of it is something that she can’t quite put words to. Paradoxical in nature, it’s soft but sharp, sweet but vicious, innocent but lethal. It tastes like whiplash. Like pain, and comfort, like confusion, and clarity.

Like she never wants it to stop.

Chloe’s teeth sink into her lower lip as her knee presses forward with more purpose and Beca stutters a broken plea into her mouth.

She throbs, wanton and desperate against the feeling. Chloe’s hand, the one that is digging fingerprint-sized bruises into the flesh of her hip, retracts and glides to the front of her jeans.

All of the air in Beca’s lungs is expelled through her nose when she feels Chloe press three fingers firmly against the seam there, never allowing her any reprieve from the kiss. Her hands grip Chloe’s sides and smooth over the planes of her back as she rolls her hips into the feeling and bites down hard on Chloe’s lower lip.

She feels the material around her hips give the tiniest amount and knows that Chloe has made quick work of the button.

The deliberate undoing of the zipper, ironically, coincides with her own.

The sound of each tooth unfastening ricochets inside Beca’s skull, and Chloe, equally as slow, punctuates the progress by nipping along her jaw.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Beca acknowledges the way the sink, pressed uncomfortably against her lower back, vibrates along with the bass pounding through the club. How, through the haze of her mind, she can dimly hear the screams of people who linger not too far outside the unlocked bathroom door.

It’s a fleeting thought, barely a gleam in the far-corner of her consciousness when Chloe’s fingers press further inside and touch her over the wet material of her panties. It’s startling, and Chloe’s mouth is on hers again, sucking hard at her lower lip as deft fingers glide boldly along the length of her.

She’s overwhelmed, her legs are unsteady beneath her, and she feels hot tears sting behind her eyes as the unbearable heat simmering within her boils over.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Beca chokes against Chloe’s lips, “Fuck, stop, _stop,”_ her voice is tremulous and weak, but she pushes Chloe away from her with a firm palm against her chest.

Breathing heavily for a few long seconds, the abrupt reality of the moment sobers her. An immediate icy guilt begins to chill the fiery ache that throbs in her chest.

Chloe stands a few feet away from her now, quiet and unmoving, and her head is cocked to the side in an expression of puzzled amusement. The subtle smirk that nicks at her lips _should_ be belied by the crimson lipstick that’s smeared and staining her chin, but it kindles something within Beca all the same.

“Fuck,” Beca says again, running a frenetic hand through her dishevelled hair, “What the fuck just happened?”

“We kissed,” is Chloe’s simple, unperturbed response.

Beca’s shaking her head, defensive, “No, _you_ kissed _me.”_

The distinction is important (to Beca).

Chloe’s smirk widens into a full smile, dazzling and soft despite the biting cockiness lacing her words, “You certainly didn’t seem to mind.”

Beca stutters, tries to deny it, but the truth is that she _hadn’t_ minded. Quite the contrary, actually. She had sunk into the feeling more smoothly - had felt more sated, more aflame - than ever before.

She wants to argue, really, but Chloe must sense her weakening resolve and has taken a purposeful step back toward her.

“I can’t,” Beca musters, holding her hands out in front of her to stop Chloe’s approach, “Jesse, he’s…” she huffs a bitter laugh, her smile tinted with vexation, “We just can’t.”

She doesn’t know why exactly the words come out sounding apologetic.

“What, are you and Romeo a thing?” Chloe questions derisively. The caustic humour in her words makes Beca pause.

“No, he,” she feels flustered under Chloe’s piercing gaze, “He has a crush on you.”

The words sound so juvenile when they rush from her mouth, and she feels the blush warm her cheeks.

Chloe’s resulting smile is subdued, amused in a provoking sort of way, and her hand reaches out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Beca’s ear as she murmurs, “What if I said he’s not my type?”

Beca hates the way that she automatically turns into the movement, how her skin yearns for the touch.

“It doesn’t matter,” her voice is weak, distracted.

Her eyes drift shut as Chloe’s fingertips brush down the side of her cheek.

More of a sigh than actual words, she’s almost pleading when she says, “We should get back.”

Her body melts when Chloe’s thumb smooths over her lower lip.

She wants to open her eyes. She wants to face reality, really, but then she knows that that will be it. She knows that she’ll have to walk out of that bathroom and away from this feeling forever. It’s selfish, and horrible, and the guilt of that thought sticks in her throat like a pill that she can’t swallow down. But she can’t open her eyes. She can’t stop breathing in Chloe’s breath, can’t stop soaking in her touch.

She feels detached, like the world is somewhere far away. Like it’s suddenly just them, and no one else. Nothing else.

Nothing else but the fact that she’s a shitty fucking friend.

The thought causes something to crack deep within her chest, and the fractals splinter and spread until she’s opening her eyes with a pained gasp.

There’s something different in Chloe’s eyes when she looks at her this time; something deeper, something almost wounded and fragile.

Something almost like fear. 

Beca doesn’t even have a chance to react before the expression is shifting and Chloe is smiling down at her in that intimidatingly calm sort of way.

“Well in that case,” she rasps, drawing her thumb away from Beca’s lip and holding it up, “We should do something about this.”

Her thumb is coated with the same deep red colour that she herself wore on her lips. Well, that she _had_ , at one point, been wearing. There’s not much left there now.

Beca almost deflates when Chloe steps away from her and turns to the mirror. She can’t move. The sink that she leans against is the only thing keeping her steady.

Chloe wipes the crimson stain from her chin and reapplies the colour to her lips with a frustrating kind of ease. She caps it, smooths her hair down, and in the next instant is standing by the door, bathed in red, throwing Beca a simpering look as she chimes, “Don’t be too long.”

When the door closes behind her, Beca almost sinks to the floor.

Long seconds pass before she’s able to turn and face the mirror, and she has to stifle a gasp. She looks like she’s been ravaged. Her hair is mussed, and her jeans are unbuttoned and hanging from her hips. Deep crimson lip prints mar her chin, the side of her jaw, and across her throat. Her own lips, swollen and prickling, burn the same colour.

She recalls reading once that lip prints are as unique to individuals as fingerprints are.

Tilting her head slightly, she watches as a perfect impression on the side of her throat catches the rufescent light. Every dip, line, and crevice of Chloe’s lips, displayed there on her skin. Just looking at it causes the phantom taste of her kiss to flood over Beca’s tongue.

It almost pains her to wash it away.

* * *

“Where’d you disappear to?” Jesse’s eyes bleed concern when Beca returns to their table a few long minutes later.

Aubrey’s demeanour is much more disapproving, “You were supposed to watch our things.”

Beca’s cheeks burn hot when Chloe shoots her a look of faux-concern.

“Sorry,” she crosses her arms, feeling awkward and hot. The noise of the club feels even louder now - it rattles through her bones and overstimulates her, “I’m not feeling great; I think I’ll head.” 

Jesse places a gentle hand against her shoulder, “You okay?”

His face morphs into that apprehensive and compassionate expression that makes her insides itch.

“Fine,” she replies shortly, shooting him a terse smile as she steps away to collect her things, “Just don’t want to get too messy, you know? I have some shit to work on tomorrow.”

Aubrey and Benji nod in agreement, and suddenly they’re all following her out onto the street.

When the door opens and a wave of cool air hits her overheated skin, Beca sighs with relief.

It’s raining, pretty heavily, and a line of cabs are pulled up along the curb.

She turns to face their group, pointedly avoiding the way that Chloe watches her. They’re all huddled beneath a small awning, pressed close against the brick wall. 

When she does meet Chloe’s eyes, a drop of rain hits the back of her neck and it drips beneath the collar of her jacket. Her body tremors at the sensation.

Her hair is damp from the rain, hanging loosely around her shoulders, and she feels clammy and uncomfortable from it when she gives Jesse a brief hug goodbye.

She can’t even bring herself to meet his eye, afraid that the guilt will entirely encompass her.

It’s the greatest sense of relief when she flags down a driver and slides into the back of a cab.

Finally, away from the noise and the danger.

She huffs a breath and rests her face in her hands; her fingers are ice cold against her warm cheeks. Different from Chloe’s, which were scorching as they blazed down the side of her throat with purpose.

Her throat constricts at the thought.

The reprieve is shortlived, because suddenly the door is opening and Chloe is sliding into the adjacent seat. The warmth of her perfume spirals through the back of the cab and it sinks into Beca’s skin.

Her hair is tousled, tucked behind her ear, and few beads of rain cling to the lapel of her leather jacket. She brushes an errant drop from her forehead and shoots Beca a sharp smile.

“Your boyfriend told me we live in the same direction,” her tone only holds the slightest taunting edge, “Suggested I join you.”

“Not my boyfriend,” Beca huffs, too snared on the misnomer to tell Chloe to get out of the cab.

“Not mine, either,” she says before giving the driver her address.

They sit in silence for a few long minutes, just watching how different hues of light filter through the rain soaked glass.

They’re bathed in red when Chloe turns her head to watch her, and Beca can suddenly feel the air surround her, thick, like a palpable heat that scorches through her skin.

“You missed a spot,” Chloe says, seemingly out of nowhere, and Beca feels the air leeching from her own lungs.

“What?”

Chloe’s hand reaches across the small space separating them and it ghosts over the side of her jaw. She’s not even touching her, but Beca still feels the warmth of her touch sink into her skin and constrict around her throat like a vice.

“Lipstick,” Chloe murmurs simply, retracting her hand.

It’s not fair, and Beca’s almost certain that Chloe knows exactly what she’s doing. But she looks so contrite, her skin dewy with rain and her eyes glowing. It’s dark in the back of the cab and Chloe’s pupils are blown wide – eclipsing much of the iridescent blue and darkening her further. She seems more dangerous, more magnetic, more paradoxical; both bright and shadowed all at once.

Beca doesn’t even know what to say because she’s ensnared, and she feels trapped air aching deep in her lungs.

It’s like staring straight at a solar eclipse - she _knows_ that it’s not good for her.

She’s entirely aware that it’s going to hurt her.

And maybe not in that moment exactly - in that moment it’s actually quite exhilarating, entrancing - but later.

Later it will burn her.

“Fuck it,” she sighs, breathy and urgent; a concession. 

Exhaling all of the air that has been trapped in her lungs in a heated rush, she launches herself across the middle seat to cup Chloe’s jaw and pull her into an impassioned kiss.

The moan that is pulled from the back of her throat is echoed back to her when she sinks her teeth into Chloe’s lower lip.

The seatbelt cuts uncomfortably across her chest, but it’s one of the last things on her mind when Chloe’s tongue traces the seam of her lips and a hand presses against her thigh.

Everything else cuts deeper, anyway.

Beca can still feel the alcohol drumming through her veins. Intoxication tangles with arousal to leave her feeling both foggy and overheated. 

When Chloe’s lips and teeth track a path over her chin and down her throat, she lets her head dip backward. Fisting a hand against Chloe’s shoulder, her eyes flutter open. She melts into Chloe’s touch, immersed in the way her skin glows with the colors being thrown from passing neon signs and traffic lights. Blue, red, purple, green. They pass her by, as vague and blurred as her own thoughts when obfuscated by the fogged glass. 

Beca just wants to press against her fully; to sit in her lap, push the jacket from her arms and feel her skin. She actually groans a little in disapproval at the force strapped across her hips, holding her in place, when she tries vainly to lean further into her.

Chloe reacts almost instantaneously, bringing her lips back to Beca’s in order to inhale her soft noises.

Fingers comb through Beca’s damp and tangled hair insistently - the rings Chloe wears catching and tugging as she fists against her skull and tries to pull her closer. 

It all feels odd and hazy in Beca’s mind. As though she’s a million miles away from herself, looking down upon the scene from afar. Each touch and sensation rattles through her like a firecracker, alighting every nerve ending in her body and making her overheat - yet it still feels as off-kilter as a dream. Like she’ll blink and the scene will be different; like she can’t trust the reality of the moment. 

The way Chloe’s tongue presses against hers, both insistent and languid all at once, registers in the back of Beca’s mind as she clings to the side of her neck – dipping her fingertips beneath the collar of her jacket in an attempt to feel more skin.

Chloe tastes like red wine and the kind of minty chapstick that makes her lips tingle. The sensation buzzes against her lips before it migrates through her whole body, prickling behind her ears and at her fingertips.

She’s never felt this way before; so overwhelmed, so utterly removed from herself. It’s foreign to her.

Chloe pulls back from the kiss, snagging Beca’s lower lip between her teeth as she retreats, and Beca moans indignantly at the sensation.

“This is me,” Chloe breathes against her parted lips, her fingers squeezing at Beca’s thigh through her jeans.

Beca hadn’t even felt the car come to a stop. Had no clue where they were at all, really.

She swallows heavily, licking her lips. She makes no attempt to move.

Chloe seems lost in the moment too, unwilling to separate. Her one hand remains fisted in Beca’s hair, the other moves from Beca’s thigh to her cheek, grazing her knuckles against soft skin.

Beca feels hung, pensile in the moment. Like if she moves then everything that is suspended in this delicate balance will come crashing down around her.

She doesn’t want to cut herself loose, not yet.

Chloe pulls away first, disentangling her fingers from Beca’s hair. The way a few strands pull, caught on her rings, makes Beca gasp against her lips.

Chloe smiles at her before reaching into her bag to pay the driver.

Beca feels a distinct hollowness mounting within her chest at the distance between them now. She feels empty and dizzy from the abruptness of the encounter.

She can still taste the spice of Chloe’s lip balm, knows that the crimson colour must mar her skin again. She feels the phantom sting at her roots from Chloe’s strong grip, the weight of a palm against her thigh, the bold pliancy of her lips.

It burns through her veins.

Chloe’s watching her as she reaches to open the door, smiling in that infuriatingly collected and satisfied way. Like she has the upper hand and she knows it. Like she has burrowed her way beneath Beca’s skin and _she knows it._

And maybe it was that look - the look that Beca knows precedes an aloof ‘goodnight’ and the slamming of a door in her face – that propels her into action.

She unfastens her seat belt and slides across the backseat in one fluid motion, pressing right against Chloe’s side.

Chloe’s smile falters, almost imperceptibly, and her lips part at Beca’s sudden proximity.

Beca just watches her, feeling sort of drunk on the way that Chloe looks up at her through her lashes in surprise now. Without once breaking eye contact, she reaches across Chloe’s body, pressing even closer against her, to pull on the door handle.

A long, heavy moment passes between them once the door has been pushed open. Beca remains, her body heavy against Chloe’s side, as cool, rain-soaked air filters through the space around them.

Everything remains unspoken, but the moment is deafening.

Chloe steps out of the cab with a sense of urgency. The sound of her heeled boots, heavy against the wet pavement, is imposing as she leads Beca to the door of her apartment building.

* * *

The rest of the night feels somewhat hazy to Beca. It’s like there’s an opaque curtain at the back of her mind, billowing an image in and out of focus so that she can’t quite grasp what’s on the other side.

It’s not even that she’s drunk, because that excuse had definitely disintegrated somewhere across the Brooklyn bridge. The moment that she had decided to step out of the cab behind Chloe was unquestionably one of complete clarity.

But the rest of the night passes her by like a dream.

Images float through her mind like a montage of intangible moments. They slip through the cracks – elusive, yet undeniably absolute. 

Chloe pressing her against the wall, a commanding hand against her cheek keeping her in place as she steals the breath from her lungs. Another hand, low on her abdomen, descending lower with each insistent press of her lips.

Chloe’s leather jacket, thrown across the room.

Unexpectedly strong arms flexing as Beca’s thigh is hitched up and across a hip.

Grinding.

Sighing.

The only available air coming straight from Chloe’s lungs and filtering directly into her own.

Dizziness. 

A distinct feeling of desperation when Chloe presses her back against the sheets. Naked, exposed, vulnerable. The unexpectedly tender way that Chloe presses kisses against her skin, in a line from one hip to the other, before the stinging bite of teeth against her inner thigh makes Beca’s torso shoot up and her ankle hook across the bare skin of Chloe’s back.

The soft touch of Chloe’s tongue against wet flesh, then the firm press of her fingers.

The steady sound of rain, and her own panted gasps of ecstasy.

A flash of light, a flash of heat.

It’s the memory of Chloe’s taste, earthy and sweet on her tongue, that lets her know that it’s real.

The sound of her moans and gasps of pleasure, muffled by the sheets as Beca presses her tongue firmly against her clit from behind. The way warm, silky flesh tenses around her fingers, around her tongue, as she strokes her inner walls. The way her thighs, stronger than expected, clamp around her ears as her body quakes in ecstasy. The soft laugh that she expels once she has finally come down, (again, and again, and again.)

The gentle way that Chloe curls a protective arm across her hip hours later, encumbered by sleep. The soft press of her lips against Beca’s temple when she thinks she’s asleep. The tender way that her fingers graze along the sensitive skin of her forearm, directionless yet cautious.

Transient moments in sharp focus.

Waking up the next morning, it’s the insurmountable degree of guilt that Beca feels boiling deep in her stomach that lets her know that it’s real. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! :) Your thoughts are muchly appreciated.


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